After being accused of greatly exaggerating her story of what happened to her during the Capitol riots last month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) went on “CBS This Morning” on Friday to double down and say that for “survivors of trauma,” sharing your story is a “really important part to healing.”

“I think one of the things that we’ve learned, especially in counseling services offered to House members, is that telling our stories and retelling it especially right after the events transpired is a really important part to healing and getting through it,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

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“And so once we tell that story — and this applies to survivors of trauma all over the country — telling that story as many times as possible and giving that account, allowing yourself to move through that emotion, allowing yourself to revisit that fear and process it and then move past it is important,” she added. “But yeah, there are lots of emotions. There’s fear; there’s anger at folks who attacked our nation’s Capitol. There’s frustration that this could have happened. But then there’s also determination for us to never allow this to happen again.”

Ocasio-Cortez went on to say that her version of events when it comes to the Capitol riots is “accurate,” slamming those who are questioning it.

“It’s, unfortunately, kind of the spring to deny and to politicize our accounts with something that I sat with,” she said. “And it was a big reason why, you know, on top of making sure that we could clear our story due to security concerns, there’s a reason why I sat on my story, as well. You know, so many survivors fear being publicly doubted. But the fact of the matter is that the account is accurate. And, you know, when it comes to minimizing the experiences of survivors, that is extremely damaging, as well.”

“[S]o many survivors across the country don’t get the help that they need because they internalize people saying that, you know, that their trauma isn’t big enough to get help,” Ocasio-Cortez added.